


Long Since Forgotten

by forestofsecrets



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Fairy!Natsuki, Gen, Gender-neutral Reader, Supernatural Creatures AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-16 05:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19640290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestofsecrets/pseuds/forestofsecrets
Summary: Cleaning out an old barn, you found something that never should have been there in the first place.





	Long Since Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> I saw something on tumblr that inspired this. It was basically a grid, dividing STARISH and QN into different types of supernatural creatures. I re-did the grid based on my own preferences. Natsuki fit into the fairy category.
> 
> I wrote half of this on the first date and then finished it the other day. This is the most recent piece of my writing.
> 
> Made on 03/20/2019 - 07/02/2019.

This place has definitely seen better days. You stood in front of the barn, converted to a warehouse ages ago, long before you were born. It was used by your grandfather to store all sorts of things; knickknacks and treasures, otherwise known as junk. 

He was a collector, a hoarder as some would say, of anything and everything that interested him. Being only human, that’s what he was, it was only natural that the supernatural caught his interest. 

But being only human caught up with him. Ever since he died, the old barn was forgotten and slipped into disrepair.

What caught your attention the most was the amount of damage a decade could inflict. What was once a traditional bright red painted barn had been bleached by the sun, faded to a dull brown, where the remaining paint struggled to remain attached to the siding. The rest had long since peeled, blown away by the wind. 

The hinges on the entrance doors were rusted and seemed ready to fall by simply the weight of your gaze on them. The roof seemed intact, surprisingly, keeping the contents shielded from the rain. It was due to that rain that the weeds grew recklessly, ivy scaling the sides but never making it more than halfway up the sides. 

It was the thick thickets and wild bushes, ripe with thorns and sharp branches, which prompted boots that went up to your knees and a sweater with sleeves. You had tangled with them before in your youth and still had scars to this day. Just thinking about it made you nostalgic. 

It was so easy to creep into your mind and pull out those memories of the days where the barn seemed brand new. Of course, to a child, you never would have noticed the peeling paint or cracked windows then.

The sun was always shining, because these were your memories, and the grass was cut and green. It was a sharp contrast to the darkened, overcast sky of today. 

You picked your path delicately up to the doors, being forced to take a roundabout way due to a particularly nasty looking overgrown tangle of weeds, and nearly tripped over your boots. They were heavy and a little too big for you. You probably should have stuffed them with paper to make them fit properly but that was beyond you now.

Taking the pair of gloves you brought out of your back pocket and slipping them on, you tried to find a good hold on the door. The wood was splintering, rough and cracked from the years of neglect. Nails were sticking out, rusted and twisted, just begging for drops of blood to give them some colour back.

After a few solid tugs, the door relented with a screech. You couldn’t open it all the way but halfway was more than enough to slip through. So far, so good. Now came the real problem; the contents of the barn.

It wasn’t as full as you thought, or told, it was going to be. Objects were scattered near where you stood, getting busier the further back you could see. Just from a quick scan, you could see tables and bookcases, paintings and dressers. You knew that you wouldn’t be able to clean it all out today so this trip was just for taking inventory.

Taking a few steps inside, you sneezed. The layers of dust, once still, were now being disturbed. Looking back, you could see outlines of your own footprints in the floor. This would be a quick trip then.  


Holding the edge of your sweater over your nose and mouth, you continued forward. A low, round table on your right had nothing of importance on it. The three shelved bookcases on your left was barely full of books. It had empty glass bottles on top. An old rocking chair was beside it, broken and slumping towards the ground. Past it, were boxes filled with wooden statues. Most were grotesque little figurines. One box was filled with wooden stakes.

The air inside was cold, causing you to shiver. You glanced around, checking for any signs of a draft but you found none. There were signs that a family of birds had moved in, and hopefully out, sometime ago based on an abandoned nest in one of the corners of the barn.

The floor was filthy, strewn pieces of hay leftover from the barn days and dirt darkened the floor. Everything was covered with a generous helping of dust and spider webs, much to your displeasure.

Now, you were coming to the back area. A sofa must have been pulled in here at some point and used to pile books onto. Not that you had a chance of reading any of them, age and mice had gotten to most of their pages. Some were in languages you had never seen based on their spines. Maybe a few had pictures you could look at. A quick leaf through one had various sketches of moon phases, another had detailed drawings on wolves. Perhaps one or two were salvageable if you put the care into it.

Flashes of green caught your attention. Between two bookshelves that went way over your head, nature seemed intent on reclaiming this piece of property. Trails of leaves were along the floor, perhaps the barn did have a missing panel or two that allowed the plants to invade. The plant life was more varied than outside, with brown mushrooms among the leaves. They could have also sprung up from beneath the floor, given the floor was mostly dirt.

You crept forward, trying to see where the weeds had come from. Using one of the bookshelves for support, you craned your neck to see as far back as you could. From what was visible, the back wall was intact. Upon trying to take one more step forward, your boot caught on something and you instantly tightened your grip on the bookshelf.

It swayed and for a second, your heart froze because you thought it was going to come down on you. It didn’t. Instead, you heard the thumps of several objects hitting the floor, mostly likely shaken off from the overloaded bookshelf as you accidentally shook it.

Then, there was the shattering of glass and you froze for a second time.

Glass meant breakable. Breakable means gone, forever. Ruined. You just ruined something. It could have been something precious, it could have been junk. Your conscious needed to know which it was.  


Once you were sure that the bookshelf had stabilized itself, you took your hand off it. You could really feel the dust invade your lungs as you were breathing heavier. It felt like a rush of wind had stirred up every last particle of dust in your immediate area. But nevermind the dust, your body protested as it forced a cough out of you, you needed to see what you broke. 

It had fallen on the other side of the bookshelf, rather luckily for you. Peering around it, you saw the broken bits of glass littered on the floor. There were other objects scattered but nothing else was obviously broken. You could only breathe a sigh of relief.

Now, you had quite enough adventure for one day, haven’t you? Time to pull out and admit to yourself that, other than a book or a painting or two, most of this was garbage. You didn’t have the space to store books you couldn’t decipher or any of the intricately carved wooden figures. You would, however, need to bring a good broom with you next time to clean up this mess.

The smashing of glass from behind brought your thoughts to a halt. One, two, three, and then four, you counted the amount of times that something hit the ground. It wasn’t you this time though, you were still at your original crime scene, motionless.

Your skin prickled as the thought crossed your mind that you weren’t alone.

You had to turn around. Turn around and see what was behind you. Nothing else to do but that. Readying yourself, you turned back towards the entrance.

You didn’t recognize the man standing there. He was standing by that old rocking chair you passed earlier. His back was to you, leaving his only identifiable features being his height and his golden blond hair. Remembering the sounds you heard, your eyes trailed down to his feet were, sure enough, the remnants of the glass bottles you had seen before.

Then you noticed he was barefoot.

“What…?”

His head lifted at your voice, and turned over his shoulder towards you and you realized you had accidentally said that out loud. You swallowed dryly, leading to a quick batch of coughing to try to replenish the spit in your mouth. The cough shook your body as you tried to contain it and failed, the sounds of your heaving chest were echoes loud and clear through the barn.

Then silence fell.

Neither of you moved. You were held in your place by his sudden appearance. You should have heard him come through the doors and yet there was no sound from them, no telltale shrieking like when you opened them. Given his height compared to yours, you were sure that he wouldn’t have been able to fit through the same opening that you had. 

Your mind was rushing to catch up with your situation. The only thing you could make out was that he stood between you and your only way of leaving here. By the sharp look he was giving you, he wasn’t going to move aside easily.

“Where’s the other one?” His voice was just as rough as you expected it to be. You watched as his eyes darted to your left and then to your right. Making sure you’re alone, perhaps? Either way, it didn’t comfort you in the slightest. “The old man.” He continued, looking back at you now. “Where is he?”

If the person in front of you was speaking of the person you were thinking of, you had some bad news for him. “He died.” It was curt, to the point. You paused, saying the words always had the same finality to them. “That’s why I’m here. To try to clean up.” And he had just made your job more difficult.

Truth be told, you weren’t sure why you told this stranger why you were in the barn. It wasn’t like he asked and he certainly didn’t need to know. Your forwardness made you frown internally, hoping it didn’t show on your face.

The distrust was evident, it was in his eyes. You tried another tactic.

“I didn’t hear you come in.” The words shook slightly and more hushed than you would have liked. Your hand gestured towards the door, seemingly untouched after you slipped in. 

The man’s mouth split into a wide grin. It was the kind that sent shivers down your spine, the kind you only see in movies. “Come in?” He paused; you didn’t like that. You were the sole focus of his attention now, both eyes trained on you. “I was already inside.” 

The pace of your heart quickened. That was… Impossible, wasn’t it? You hadn’t noticed him before and, being how big he was, you were sure you would have. Surely…

“Tell me,” the man started, drawing your attention back to him. His voice was low, something dangerous in the undercurrent of it. “Do you know what these are? No, what these were.” He gestured to the broken glass at his feet and you were reminded once again that he was barefoot.

Wild green eyes held yours while he waited for your reply. You tried to give him one. “Glass bottles?”

He sneered. Wild flashed to feral. “Wrong answer. These were prisons.”

By reflex, you swallowed. Your mouth was running dry. A nagging feeling was coming up from your gut. It spread through your body quickly. Regular humans didn’t talk that way. They didn’t just pop up out of thin air either. In the back of your mind, you recalled the stories you begged for as a child from your grandfather.

Vampires, werewolves, elves, and fairies. The supernatural tickled your fancy. As a child, the fairies always caught your attention. Illustrated in books, books you were sure were in this very barn, as bright, colourful butterflies, the fairies were beautiful. Large, fluttering wings, curved delicately like stained glass. 

You had experienced raising butterflies as a child. It was simple, really. Catching a caterpillar and keeping it in a jar until it cocooned itself into a butterfly. The jar was filled with leaves, twigs, and stones, of course, having decorated it yourself at a young age. The offer had come up to keep something other than butterflies but you had turned that down. Not for humanitarian reasons but for the feeling of joy you got when you watched your butterfly fly away.

That nagging feeling, you realized, was dread. “Don’t tell me…” Your hand found its way up to your face, covering your mouth in shock. You were the one who had compared fairies to butterflies. You had been too young to understand the difference between the animals and the supernatural creatures. “How long...?”

The question was well implied. _How long were you in there for?_

In a way, you didn’t want to know. You didn’t want to know what happened to the man standing in front of you. But you knew that if you didn’t get to the truth, the nausea would never quite go away. It was, in part, your responsibility. 

“Long enough.” The response was jaded but lacking the previous ferocity. His eyes narrowed, as if they were studying you. “A decade, at least. Give or take a few years.” His face turned away, eyeing you from the side. 

Judging your reaction, maybe? Not that you could have controlled it. The mental math proved it to you; that was just about the right time. Your gaze slipped down, past his ripped clothing to stare at the ground. Still barefoot.

“But I’m leaving now. There’s nothing to keep me here now.” His words were likely the only thing you were going to get in parting. You half expected him to poof away right there, just like that. Gone just like he came. 

There was just one problem.

“Wait!” The word forced itself out of your lungs before you could stop it, hands swung up in front of you on impulse. “The glass. Just let me clean the glass up.” Surely there had to be a broom laying around somewhere. Otherwise, you had your gloves. 

A laugh stopped you. It wasn’t a mean laugh but it seemed to genuinely around amused. Looking up at the stranger, you were sure you had a stupid look on your face. But you didn’t feel like he was laughing at you.

The man standing before you seemed different. Just with a clear laugh, you sensed a change. It was in his eyes, those emerald eyes twinkled. “You’re concerned about me? Thank you!” When he didn’t make a move forward, your body moved closer.

Those bottles had smashed into many more pieces than you had initially thought. He must have thrown them to the ground, no doubt hating the things. You circled, trying to find the path with the least amount of glass. The risk of contracting an infection from dirty, broken glass on a barn floor was high.

The man kept turning in place to face you. He clasped his hands behind his back as he watched you work. Giggles escaped as your brows furrowed. A stray lock of hair was tucked behind his ear.

Eventually, you came the conclusion that there was no easy way and he was better off using something to step on to get across. The glass had flown out in a wide circle around him. A few pieces even crunched under your feet, on the very fringes of the perimeter. 

You had your back to the door now, it would be easier to get out. “Take these!” Your leg shook wildly until your right boot came off with an unattractive squelching sound. You made the motion to toss it to the man so he was ready to catch it. The left boot came off with similar ease, that is, none at all. They were too big for you anyways.

“You’re giving these to me?” What with the way he was answering you with questions, you hoped you weren’t getting into any fairy magic. But he beamed at you so brightly that it was hard to believe the man was up to anything nefarious. 

So, you grinned back at him despite the dirt already spreading between your toes. It had to be more than just dirt, being that this was a converted barn, but you didn’t dwell on it. To you, it was the least you could do.

They seem to fit the stranger, thankfully. He smiled at you, nothing like how it was before. It was softer, like he was speaking to a friend. “Well then, I’ll be off.” He paused, looking at you again.  
“I’d like to meet you again.”

Then he was gone in another rush of wind.

Dust got stirred up, a raspy cough left your throat. Once it subsided, you were left alone in the barn. Truly alone this time. With all the boxes of junk and dirt and withering vines. The greenery that had grown over that decade was rapidly shrinking away.

You were left wondering. About what happened all those years ago and how you could set it right. Perhaps you already did.

You were also left wondering about how you were going to pick your way back home without any footwear.

“Geez, if you were just going to fly away, you could have at least returned my boots…”

You had better get started otherwise the sun would beat you home.

**Author's Note:**

> I like including a lot of details. How many guessed the glass bottles were important when they were first mentioned?


End file.
